Losing Cause
by quill.is.mightier
Summary: He always was a sucker for a losing cause...Post-BDM. Mal/River.


Warning- I forewent preceding and anteceding apostrophes to indicate dropped sounds in speech (and thought), because I think we can all tell that it's representative of colorful speech, and having all those apostrophes is downright distracting and annoying. It's not exactly an unusual practice, but I haven't noticed it in any Firefly fics yet, so I wanted to explain before I got angry reviews about getting a beta! Enjoy!

* * *

Mal still woke up in a cold sweat half the nights. Some nights it was the war, some nights it was Miranda. Some nights it was River.

It just weren't natural; a little girl like that being so deadly, so gracefully adept at violence. It's a certainty that her psychic reading was no natural thing. The way she slunk about the ship, endangering his crew with her mere presence, knowing things she oughtn't know…. it liked to make his blood run cold.

So why did he have to pick her up off the gorram floor of that gorram bar, after she had revealed all manner of unsavory talents? Talents, meaning to say…beating the shit out of anybody within a hundred meter radius.

In his dreams, some nights she pointed a stick at him, of which he was deathly afraid for some strange reason, and laughed a chilly laugh. "I melted away. I became the ship. Do you know why I became the ship, Mal?"

"Why ask me questions when you know what I'm going to say?"

"Because I like to hear you say it."

Mal started awake, and rubbed his face to shake the dreams and uncomfortable bellyache they gave him away. It was time to be a captain again. And besides, River had been acting half a normal girl since Miranda. She flew the ship half the time, and while Zoe would never admit to there being a finer pilot than her late husband… gun held to her head, she'd be hard pressed to say River might not be his equal.

In the shower, he ignored the ache in his loins and wished he'd ever have a dream about Inara. Beautiful, sweet, stubborn Inara, who hadn't left the ship in the months following Miranda. He'd had half a mind to make her his, but it'd been awful busy getting the ship repaired and back in the air, and finding jobs. And making sure Zoe didn't have a mind to eat her gun, as he worried some nights.

Getting dressed, he wondered if his shirts weren't fitting a mite tighter than they had a few years back, but he put his brown coat on and she fit fine.

* * *

"It's a simple question, Simon. Is River ready to have her own room, or not? You said yourself, she's doin dandy. She don't need no babysitter anymore. Whereas I…I could use a little sittin some nights." The sound of kissing. Always the sound of kissing these days. As if Kaylee didn't have enough work to be doin on _Serenity._ He came upon the mess, and got the visual to go with the audio. He made a groan he thought satisfactorily conveyed _grumpy captain_.

"Doctor, don't be lettin Kaylee's wily ways make a fool of you. If River ain't rightly ready for a room all her own, then you'll just need to stay tight. And," he raised his voice to be heard over Kaylee's groan, "I'll hear no griping from you, Kaylee. You're spending enough time occupied with things other than the engine in the engine room already. Now eat your breakfast and see to those couplings."

"Yes, cap'n," she mumbled, but he saw her squeeze Simon's knee under the table. They'd have a go in the engine room before any work got done. Mal couldn't truthfully say he was too beat up about it. Couple of kids like them deserved to be happy. He'd have to ask Zoe if they could have her and Wash's old room, the only one big enough for two to live comfortably as a couple, since she weren't making any use of it. She'd had Book's old quarters since her fifth sleepless night in her marriage bed.

But first, he'd have to have a talk with River. He thought about delaying, but somethin made him feel he ought to do right by Simon and Kaylee. As soon as possible. So he headed to the bridge. And, like normal, Inara was in his way. They stopped in the hall, a few feet farther apart than allowed for comfortable conversation. Nothing ever seemed to be comfortable with them.

"I see we've dumped our legitimate cargo. You must be relieved."

"For the paycheck? Course."

"To be back to your cunning ways."

"Honest work is just as good as the dishonest kind. The honest kind tends to leave us with honest cargo, though, which a bunch of dishonest folk'd love to relieve us of. And dishonest folk ain't gentle with their relieving."

"Yes, I seem to recall you telling me that once."

"I seem to recall you having questionably honest work of your own once. Planning on taking any clients?" She looked toward a mark on the wall. Possible where Jayne had had that mishap with Vera.

"I was unsure when you'd have more work, and where. It is difficult to book appointments when one has no idea where one will be in the future," and, without enough pause for him to say anything back, "If you'll excuse me, Captain." And she hurried on her way. He decided not to give chase and ask her the interesting question of why she hadn't made any engagements at the core planet they'd stopped on just two days ago, for two days, about which she'd known for two weeks. H didn't have time for their games; he needed to speak with River and check on their course.

There still rang in him a sense of things not bein as they should when he stepped on to the bridge and there wasn't a blond pain in his ass complaining about how close he and Zoe were. But River always helped the wrong-feeling of it, when her head whipped about to show him her shiny expression. She loved _Serenity_, as he'd told her she must, to be a good pilot. Simon had been right about her; she was a prodigy, in everything she did.

"How's my boat doing?"

"Zoe called it a spaceship. You call it a boat. Everyone calls it a she. She's fine. Captain." Ignoring the crazy talk as he almost always did, Mal focused on the pertinent information.

"When will we arrive at the rendezvous point?"

"We will hit atmo in sixty-eight hours, thirteen minutes, and forty to fifty-five seconds. Dock time is more variable, depending on weather and traffic conditions on-moon. Estimated—"

"Ok, River. Savant time over. Time for regular folk talk, hm?" She gave him a look like he was an idiot, that made him remember she was a real, if not quite regular, person, a person he kinda wanted to slap a bit.

"How you been doin, little one?" She cocked her head. He cleared his throat. How exactly was a fellow supposed to ask a crazy person how crazy she felt? "You been feeling alright on _Serenity_ these last months?"

"Yes…" The way she tilted her head down, so her hair framed her face and her eyes looked up at you was…unnerving. It drove him nuts.

"Been needing big brother much?"

"Simon doesn't need to take care of me anymore. I take care of _Serenity_ now." Now, Mal had heard how the fight on Mr Universe's moon had gone down; he wondered how well she'd "take care" of the Firefly class vessel in a fight.

"Then how would our star pilot like to have her own room?" River looked away, her stringy locks seeming to take an extra moment to decide to follow in her head's path. The girl's hair had a life of its own.

"For Kaylee?"

"For Simon and Kaylee, maybe. Maybe for you. I say again, would _you_ like to have your own room?"

"I…don't know. Alone. Like dreams?" And she looked up at him again. _Shun-sheng duh gao-wahn! _Not knowing what a being was saying when she opened her mouth sure made Mal upset. How was a captain supposed to lead a crew when half of 'em was sexing every time they turned around, one was grieving, one was trying to lug grenades everywhere, and one was _go tsao dei _crazy.

"Uh…sure."

"My dreams are bad. Getting better, though." Getting better. That sounded good.

"If you want, we got a room free in the—"

"That's fine."

"Sure 'bout that, little albatross? It's a mite small. In my experience, womenfolk tend to get crabby when they ain't got space for all their fixins." Now her look was amused.

"Am I like other womenfolk in many aspects, Captain?"

"Well, I reckon not. But that don't mean you don't deserve to be if you want. Fact, you should spend some time with Kaylee and Inara. It's my understanding you missed out on some formative experiences, what with being locked up and experimented on and the like; seems to me you should be catchin up now's you got the time."

"I'd rather go on jobs." She was very calm. Mal didn't know if that worried or comforted him.

"I don't see why we can't arrange both. _If_, you behave. Still don't feel right takin a young thing like you out in the danger, but…I ain't so rich I can afford to turn down the help of a genius assassin."

"I ain't an assassin," she, well, if she were anybody else he would have called it snapping. But River Tam didn't snap. She pierced you with her calm, razor-sharp words and stare. The fact that she used outer rim dialect didn't lessen the effect none.

Luckily, Captain Reynolds had been in the war, and a little girl ashamed of herself for bein a killer didn't bother him much, not even when she looked right through you.

"And I ain't a little girl." The pierce was gone and she turned back to her piloting. Mal smiled and wondered why he felt almost as if he liked the crazy assassin girl driving his boat, and what that really said about him anyway. Nothing good, that was for certain.

* * *

"Inara, what are we doing? Don't you think we're too old to be makin such fools of ourselves?" She didn't respond. She never responded. So, he pushed. "Tell me you don't want me." His breathing was too loud, showing he wasn't calm, wasn't collected. A tell.

"Oh, Mal. Don't make it sound so simple."

"Maybe it is."

"Of course it isn't. What about Saffron, or Nandi? You didn't seem to be pining when they were around."

"I wasn't operating under the impression that I had a theater-gum-chewer's chance in the special hell with you then, so forgive me for making the most of an opportunity. And it's not fair bringing up Saffron. She was a devil woman."

"Mal…it just wouldn't work. I can't be tied here like that…"

"Why not? You left once, and it didn't stick. Admit that you're staying—that you want to stay." They were very close, much closer than they had been in a long, long while. In a moment, he could reach out his hand and touch her raven tresses.

But wait… they weren't raven, were they? Kaylee had showed her a new shampoo to use and it shone its natural, lustrous dark, dark brown now. She said it was practical because it behaved better. But he was touching it then anyhow. Soft, very soft. He hadn't touched a woman in so long. He hardly acknowledged the wayward thought that tried to remind him River was only eighteen, hardly a woman by many measures, and kissed her anyway. He'd been achin to do it for so long.

No one understood him like she did. No one set him at ease or on edge like she did. He slid her large pink top over her head, and her small, pale chest, clad in only a breastband was there beneath his hands. He slowly unwound the band, spinning her in the way he'd imagined so many times before as she danced on his hull. And then she was only in a skirt. He kissed one breast, small but so soft, pliant, before returning to her mouth.

"Tell me I'm beautiful," she whispered through kisses.

"You're beautiful. You know I think so. You know the sight of you drives me wild. You know I've wanted you since Miranda. God, I want you." Breathing into her neck was heaven. He knew what rich vein of blood ran through there, and to feel its life force was heady. No one was as alive as River.

"Yes," she said, piercing him again. She leaned in, "But I like to hear you say it," she whispered in his ear, and his knees buckled and he slammed her small body into the wall, knowing she could take it, so he could lick down to her—

"Captain, we've arrived in port, sir! And may I suggest laying off the wine at dinner if it gets you too hung over to notice us entering atmo or calling you on the comm, sir!" Zoe was respectfully rude, as always, after she finished banging on his door. She left after he groaned to show he was getting up.

Instead, he lay staring at his ceiling for a good five minutes, disgusted with himself and wondering how to hide his sick dreams from his psychic pilot. How to live with himself for thinking such perverted things about a troubled young girl. For starting a sex dream with Inara and ending it with another woman.

For wishing Zoe hadn't interrupted.

* * *

The drop went smooth for once, except for Jayne getting a nasty burn in a place he'd care not to think about, but Jayne getting a bit of a flesh wound was a damn good day, in his book. And then there was the matter of not letting River come on the job, despite havin maybe implied he'd let her come the other day. He had instructed Simon to tell her she was needed at the helm, but he knew there'd be hell to pay. He just couldn't face her right then. He'd be fine soon, though. It was just one of them things; dreams were supposed to be a reflection of your psyche, right? He was just working through some tension. Sexual to start with, but then he had some lingering issues about Miranda and the events thereabout. And River represented Miranda. Simple as that. It just got all muddled about in his brain. Even if River had heard, she'd understand. Even if she had heard his thoughts about how fine she looked with her shiny, clean hair last week.

He climbed down into his bunk as soon as he got back onboard, breathing a sigh of relief to have missed seeing River. He was dropping his suspenders before he even turned around, and promptly shoving them back up and spluttering once he turned and saw his guest sitting on his bed.

River's legs were under her, and her hand was laid flat, palm-down, on his covers. Mal's heart felt a little like the time he had forgotten to cover the portside smuggle hatch and Alliance patrols had conducted a routine inspection. _Please wah duh ma huh tah duh fong kwong duh wai shung don't notice the gorram hatch._

"Bad night's sleep?" she asked, head cocked. A nervous, incredulous laugh bubbled out of him as he circled to the farthest spot in the room he could get from her, feeling mightily reminded of a certain devil woman. Only the she-devil had been naked and River wasn't. Wasn't naked, that is. Oh _shiong mao niao_, now he was thinking about River, a _psychic_, naked. His eyes skittered down, totally without his permission, to look at her. Luckily, her wardrobe made it easier on him; she wore a strange poncho over working trousers with combat boots. Not exactly risqué. The trousers did fit pretty snug, though…

"No! Why do you ask?" He cleared his throat so his voice would sound a little less a guilty twelve-year-old, and continued, "River! What are you doing here? This is my private bunk. Of course, as your Captain, if you ever need to talk, you're welcome to come see me… uh, not in my bunk, though. Not that you've done anything wrong, but—" His captaining skills just kept improving. Was it possible to send more mixed signals to one of his crew?

"Captain, I can't read your mind. Not well. Your thoughts are very….erratic." His heart unclenched a little and he leaned back against his drawers, feeling mighty proud of himself. You could always count on Mal to be…erratic?

"So, uh. What are you doing down here, little one?"

"I thought I was to be allowed on jobs. Have I not been…stable enough for you?" Mal closed his eyes and wondered once again how to handle the particularly delicate issue of an unstable person's stability, or, you know, lack thereof.

"River, you'll go on jobs when I feel that you'd be better placed with me than with _Serenity_. Today, that just wasn't the case. I'll not have you arguing with me on every occasion about how I assign crew duties." She squinted at him a little, which would normally worry him, but River was always doin unusual things like that. Which, come to think of it, usually worry him, so he guessed it did worry him, but since it was the regular deal with her, it was…fuck it, he wasn't going to think anymore. It shouldn't be too difficult. He would just channel his inner Jayne.

"It wasn't because of the dream?" Total heart failure. He recognized it from Niska's special treatment.

"Heh-wha, whyever would you think something foul about me like that?!" When in doubt, lie through your teeth. "That's a gorram serious offense to lay at a man's feet, little albatross, you know that? I've a mind to throw you in the brig for a while (_River in handcuffs)_ just to teach you a lesson about disrespecting your Captain in such a fashion." He was standing straight up now, and she slowly unfolded from his bed.

She smiled and walked past him, to the rungs leading up to the hatch. She paused with her hand on a rung, twisting her upper half to look back at him.

"Thought about what you said. Formative experiences? I decided…don't need them."

"You don't know what you need. Don't you want to go back to normal?"

"I don't want regular life. Do you?" The way she turned things around all of a sudden like that caught him off guard, a place a captain of a smuggling vessel should never be. He crossed his arms and looked down, back to leaning and being cool.

"That ain't the point. What's right for one being, ain't right for another."

"And, Captain?" He looked back up at her. "You're not a pervert. Most men are only ever thinking about drinkin, killin, and fuckin." Mal was sputtering for the second time in as many minutes, hands flailing about, unsure where to be. River was still as ever. It made him feel twice the fool for floundering so.

"Hell, River, don't use language like that! It ain't natural hearin such filth from a pretty thing like you."

"You think I'm pretty?" His knees almost buckled thinking back to his dream, and he wondered how much tension, confusion, and humiliation he could stand before his brain fried. He just stared at her disapprovingly. Her face was blank as it uncocked itself and turned away, headed up the ladder. Letting her go easy was probably the best move, but he was mighty rankled, and couldn't resist a parting shot.

"It's awful rude to spy in someone's head, like that, Reader!"

Her reply was very faint, coming from just above the hatch, but it wafted down to him clear to be heard: "You dream very loudly…"

He was sure he'd lost two years off his life during that exchange. And he hadn't had much time to spare to begin with. So…little River had heard (saw? Oh hell…) his dream. He couldn't tell what she'd made of it. And he wished she hadn't adopted _Serenity_'s crew's patterns of speech; it weren't natural hearing ain'ts and fuckins coming as easy from a person as elegant core-planet speech did. _Simon_ didn't blend the worlds. He always acted just as upper crust as he had the day he stepped on board. The captain sort of respected him for that, and wished his little sister could be as amenable.

River was just too…flexible. His fingers went to his temples as he thought the word, but it was true. She could do, and often did, everything. Mimicked accents, intimidated enemies, killed a platoon of Reivers, huddled crying through firefights, named every spec of his boat, spouted poetry about melting into a spaceship, danced, and carved up his crewmembers. It didn't make for easy figuring of a person, and it sure made her unpredictable. Unstable.

So, Mal decided to proactively ignore the whole issue. What was a little more sexual tension on top of Inara? _(River on top of Inara)_ Thinking of which, he was damn grouchy he'd finally started to have a proper sex dream about Inara, only to have it snatched away. Aaaannndd those thoughts led to River, which was _not_ a good step on the proactive ignorance path.

He wasn't aware how much time had passed, him just thinking on his problems, until he heard River's voice crackling over his intercom, the light blinking to indicate the signal was from the bridge.

"The harder you focus on ignoring something, Captain, the easier I can hear it." Fellow couldn't even gorram ignore things in peace on this gorram boat!

Time for a decision.

"Crew, this is your captain speaking. We've gotten a nice haul today. Two days shore leave, effective immediately. Do what you want with your time, but if you're not back on this boat in forty-eight hours, we won't so much as look over our shoulders for you as we leave atmo. Now get the hell off my boat."

He heard faint cheers down the hall. Now he'd have some gorram peace on his gorram boat.

Well, he managed twenty hours of peace, anyway, and he'd resigned himself to a hell of a lot of things worse than River knowing his subconscious held a torch for her in a hell of a lot less time than that before. So he was just fine and right with the world again when Inara, the first to return, wandered into the cargo bay. She didn't seem happy to see him, but that wasn't exactly a first, neither.

"Find any fine clients?" he asked, moving some cargo around that never got put back in its proper place after their last round of handball that had gotten out of hand and become _obstacle_ handball.

"Yes." Mal was tweaked about that, but he didn't see a way of getting around it. She _was_ a whore. She wasn't gonna stop whoring just because he'd … well, because he'd, you know. Um… well, gorram it she knew how he felt, didn't she? Didn't matter if he hadn't exactly said as much. Did it?

"Well, good. Seems I recall rent's due pretty soon." They hardly looked each other in the eyes anymore. Did that seem right? It had been awhile for him, but it didn't seem right.

"I was actually hoping I could speak to you about that matter." Now he looked over at her.

"I'm already letting you have it for near free. Me and mine certainly can't afford to be renting it out for less'n that!" He hoped she hadn't noticed he'd sorta done excluded her from the rest of the crew. He hadn't meant it that way, but women could be real touchy sometime.

"Can we go somewhere more private?" Mal looked around. They were the only two people on the boat. "Please, Mal. I'd just like to be in my shuttle for this conversation." Mal was feeling like maybe this conversation wasn't gonna be about negotiating rent, but he didn't know what to make of Inara's odd behavior as he walked behind the trailing orange silk of one of them beautiful, near-indecent but never actually indecent gowns she wore. Maybe that's why he could never have a sex dream about her; he darn near couldn't imagine what she'd look like naked, she was always so gussied up. Like a doll. So pretty in its little clothes, but just sorta blank underneath.

A picture of River from his dream swam through the front of his mind, but that was silly. First time he'd ever seen her, she'd been naked, after all. But come to think of it, he'd barely seen anything at all. And it had been such a long time ago, and she'd been so painfully thin then. She couldn't have gained more than five pounds since then, but five pound on such a small girl made a big difference and she didn't look like the same, recently tortured girl. So it wasn't really the same, bein able to imagine her naked now as opposed to remembering what she'd looked like then, which he couldn't really…

Gorram it, had he just talked himself out of his excuse for why it wasn't creepy to be able to visualize naked River? That ain't right.

In her shuttle, Inara sat on the half-moon couch and gestured to the seat beside her. He indicated he'd rather stand. It didn't feel right being on the same level with Inara; how would he get the upper hand?

"Mal."

"…Inara?" She smiled, and he felt ice creep into his stomach.

"Mal, we have to talk about whether I'm going to stay on _Serenity_." This again?

"This again?" She ignored him.

"I've been talking with River," she began, and the ice turned to molten lava through his veins. She _wouldn't_ have. Inara's eyes on him seemed to melt every bit they touched, every perverted, disgusting bit.

"Now, I don't know what you two been talkin bout, but it ain't exactly fair play to bring in a psychic, and—"

"Mal, don't be angry with River. I sought her out and assured her that telling me was for the best. She was…very difficult to understand sometimes, but I heard enough." Her expression was solemn. His was panicked and nauseated, he was sure.

"I did something I shouldn't have, I know, in asking her how you feel about me, but I couldn't trust you. To know your own heart, to tell the truth, to fully _explain _the truth. I know you won't easily forgive me for asking, though." Wasn't that the gorram truth. He felt right pissed. He opened his mouth to tell her so, but she held up a hand and quickly said, "Please just let me finish before we start fighting and get side-tracked. It's important."

"Fine."

"River helped me see, not how you feel about me, but how I feel. She said that the fact I had to ask, couldn't tell already or didn't believe—it meant something bad. It meant insecurity, and that I'm always looking for a way out. I have to decide what I want, without necessarily knowing what you want.

"And I have." Some of Mal's irritation had faded away, hanging suspended on Inara's decision. His gut twisted uncomfortably as he waited, but the bottom of it plummeted when he saw the tears in her eyes. "Mal—"

"Inara, don't. Don't do this—" he tried to make this stop happening. This couldn't be happening again.

"Mal, I have to go. I have to," she insisted, overpowering his attempts to make her shut her mouth for once.

"Why?"

"Because we don't work together. I can't stop pushing you away, and I can't stay in one place; I can't be tied here, or to you. And you won't leave _Serenity_. You shouldn't have to. I thought maybe—" she paused when her voice broke, looking away to regain her all-important composure, "maybe we could work through it. No one ever said love was easy, right?" His breath is stolen away, because neither of them has ever said a whit about love before. "But River showed me; it's not smoothing rough edges to fit together. It's trying to put a square peg in a round hole. It just won't be."

"Says who? River? Scuse me sayin, but what's the girl know about love or relationships? Ain't she been in a lab most of her ripe years?" It came out harsher'n he meant, but it burned having the words of a recently (and possibly still) crazy psychic _teenager_ held against him and Inara.

"River sees some things quite clearly. I'm not sure most of what she said was very intelligible, but I… understood. I saw there's no future for us. And I can't stay here, with that kind of history lingering. Today, I could barely… I can't have emotional entanglements around and properly perform my job." And the bitterness hit, hard, a tidal wave over his better judgment, and he said the first horrible thing his twisted mind thought of.

"No, I'm sure whoring is difficult to do with a man waiting on you at home." And Inara had the indecency not to slap him; her mouth tightened, but quickly resumed its normal, irritatingly calm visage.

"You can't make me mad; that's how I know it's the right decision."

"The hell I can't make you mad! See how storming out makes you feel!" He stared at her for a minute, fuming, before remembering he'd just promised to storm out, and then marched out, slamming the door behind him.

That was the problem with Inara—she just decided to up and leave or withhold honesty about her feelings whenever she gorram felt like it! Like there weren't two people involved, two people who were both important, and one of whom was actually the gorram _Captain_, thanks!

He spent a good while pacing and jabbing things and checking things as didn't need checking around _Serenity_, happy to lose himself to uncomplicated feelings like annoyance and anger. The banging around didn't seem to help the annoyance any, though, so when River came back aboard, he ordered her to the bridge and followed after her as she ghosted her way up the boat.

Slamming the bridge door shut as they both slipped inside, he opened his mouth wide to set into her.

"Didn't tell secrets." His mouth clamped shut.

"What _did_ you tell, albatross?" He hoped the nickname would make her feel guilty for talking about him behind his back.

"Not guilty. Told begger what she asked. She doesn't love you. Not enough. Not more than her freedom. Onl hinted you wouldn't be happy with less, and she flew away with conclusions. Weren't wrong, so I didn't correct, didn't add." Mal's eyebrow twitched, he was so tired of having no clue what to say to these women.

"You don't need to go readin minds or tellin futures for anyone on this boat just cause they go askin, hear? And if it's all the same to you, I'd prefer you refuse if they're askin anything about me!" He didn't mean to raise his voice—well, ok, he did, but he didn't mean to upset her by it. Much.

"I don't tell what I don't want, but Captain expects too many things from a little girl-bird! She can't respect all his wishes, because they ask for different things! She can't be girl and bird and woman and pilot!" Now River had raised her voice, and he didn't know if she'd meant it to or not, but he sure felt upset. His raw emotions over Inara shrunk themselves down and he saw himself for what he was: a mean old man beating on a little girl instead of facing his problems himself. What a _san ba_.

"Sorry, albatross. Not your fault I got too many problems for everyone to tiptoe around at once. Don't feel bad for just answerin a question. Alright?" She still looks offended (it was hard to tell with River, though—most of her emotions were expressed with wide eyes and stillness, so they were tough to tell apart, but he was going off of context clues—for instance, the yelling).

"Not mean. Just stupid," was her matter-of-fact response.

"Now, I've apologized, River, and I can't have people calling me stupid on my own boat." Chastising her felt strange, like acting the part of her father, which creepified him.

"Captain isn't riding the boat he thinks he is. Stupid not to know what ship he's sailing."

Knowing she wasn't speaking literally, he went ahead and took her literally—he refused to be sucked into speaking all enigmatic. "Reckon I know _Serenity_ from any other boat."

"Maybe once. No more. She's far away from you now. You ride another crest." Her pale face cracks in a grin and she spins away, down the hall, leaving Malcolm Reynolds to scratch his head, lost, yet again. He couldn't say she didn't take his mind off his troubles. He also couldn't say that those troubles didn't return a half moment after she left, usually with a little extra something she'd given him to ponder on. Like what boat he was supposedly hitching a ride on.

* * *

It was a month gone from the never-solved hitchhiker puzzle that found the Captain drinking in the privacy of his bunk because he was confused and mad and sad, and confused that he didn't feel sadder about Inara being gone. A week past they'd left her on some fancy moon with a wealthy client who'd see her to new home, wherever that was.

And when a man didn't feel as he thought he ought, well, then he ought to drink. He was about two fifths in and feeling pretty sure he was much sadder bout Inara than he'd previously thought—all that soberness had just clouded everything up and made it hard to tell how sad he _really_ was—when Kaylee came over the intercom, saying he was needed for an emergency in the engine room. He'd about made it to the floor when River crackled to life in his room.

"Don't worry, Captain. I can handle it. Just a pigeon where he shouldn't belong. Go back to pretending sad." Taking the break from duty and forgetting the rest, he laid back in bed. The pang of _duty, got to help the crew, stay in the air, fix _Serenity_, go go_ was there, but amber-sounding with fuzziness. River was a genius; she'd take care of the crew. He could stay, and…what was he doing? It was important, but he couldn't quite…

River. He must've been thinking about River. Her name felt fresh in his head. Trying to guess what boat he was supposedly on again, probably. He'd never been much for figurin poems and riddles the like, pretty much calling it quits after the _Ancient Mariner_, which was nice enough, but a mite flowery for him, and if River's talkin weren't useless, confusing poems and riddles half the time, he'd be humped. His brain tried to fit literals into the metaphor slots like puzzle pieces, but nothing fit. Something…something about Inara. But no, he'd been dreaming of River, hadn't he?

_Nipples straining against black lace, begging to be let out._

_That_ hadn't been in his dream. He felt like he shouldn't be thinking such things, but River was eighteen and what she didn't know wouldn't hurt her. It wasn't so bad it was too creepifying to even _think_ about. Tweren't no harm, just…letting a daydream go its own way…

_She was leaning back against the ladder, asking to be let in though she'd already crawled down. The lace that exposed her breasts so brazenly turned to demure, floaty-type fabric underneath her bosom. He nodded that she could come to him, breath frozen in desperate need to see what lay beneath the opaque gown._

_She crept forward in that way that was dancing, prowling, and hesitation all in one River package, but with her barely covered breasts leading the way, he'd have to pick prowling as the overriding descriptor of the lady's fine, fine walk._

_She cocked her head to the side. She was always doing that. "Lady?" And she smiled, amused at something. "Amused at you." _

"_Why, darlin?" And her lids dropped half down and when she spoke, her voice was woman-heavy and girl-light._

"_I don't think a lady'd seduce her Captain." And he didn't ask her if she meant it, if she'd regret it. He took._

_And took. _

_And took…_

And sobered up after he'd milked himself dry and realized that what River didn't know _didn't_ hurt her, but there weren't nothing in his head that River couldn't know. And probably his thoughts hadn't been too quiet when he'd been churning his butter thinking about her, so what River_ could_ know, she almost certainly _did _know.

And it was sure to hurt one of them. Probably Mal's organs, considering her brother was awful good with a scalpel and unhealthily codependent on his crazy little sister.

He thought the "codependent" and "crazy" parts a little more forcefully than necessary.

Then he remembered he was still pretty spaced and….

* * *

When Mal woke up, he wasn't a happy captain. Not a happy captain at all. He had a nasty hangover and a nasty feeling that it hadn't been a good night (it usually took him a while to remember _the night before_, which was probably a bad sign of traumatic brain injury he'd no doubt suffered while at war or while guttered out of his mind—both of which times he was typically at high risk of putting himself in grave danger) and it wasn't going to be a good day.

So he took it out on his crew.

"Kaylee, if you don't wipe that look off your face, I'm going to ban sex on this boat." She opened her mouth, "Ah!" he cut her off. "I'll do it. If I ain't getting any, then nobody else should be allowed to be so gorram cheerful on my boat." His cheerful engineer, who had someone else to churn her butter for her—

Oh. Oh _gou pi!_ His eyes immediately went to River, who was sitting calmly (but possibly with the barest hint of an amused quirk to her lips) down the table from him. He snapped straight into _ignore ignore ignore_ mode. Everything would be fine. It would all be dandy, it would even be gr—

"Butter, Captain?" he stood up so suddenly, his thighs banged the table and caused everyone's silverware to jump and him to wince and the crew to stare and him to flee the scene.

"What's the matter with him?" he heard Simon query (Simon didn't ask or anything mundane like that; he _queried_ and _inquired_ and _questioned_ and every other big word Mal couldn't think of right then because he was so darn angry that he felt, for the first time, like he couldn't stand being on _Serenity_, his refuge, his baby he'd fought so hard to protect and nurture. And now he couldn't stand to be on her because River was driving him out of it).

"Now don't you blame the bird because you have no shade; _you_ cut down its tree to stop its songs."

….fucking _hell!_

"I know you can talk plain, girl, so you—"

"Don't call me a child any more and I'll talk as plain as I like." The words and her eyes were a whip of clarity and force With all his thinking about her being young, or old enough, or innocent, or tempting, he'd sort of forgot she was also scary. Very, very scary and creepifying.

"River, go to your bunk." He saw her defiance on her face and he was _not_ in the mood, so he added in his most non-insubordination-tolerant voice, "That's an _order_." Cramped hallways weren't the best place to seem authoritative (open spaces were, as everyone knows), but he had a lot of practice so he was sure she'd obey. She'd probably do something mind-bogglingly irritating beforehand, but she'd obey.

"No." He retained his optimism and assumed this was the irritating thing that was preceding the obeying part. He gave her his _I'm a hardass_ look, to hurry to the obeying stage.

"Malcolm Reynolds," she said slowly, and it was awful similar to the woman-heavy register of his dream-River's voice, "I think what you need," she prowled forward, "is for someone to disobey you."

And, despite the fact that he was still white-hot-poker-tip uncomfortable with all the irritation and anger in him, he felt his cock twitch because his albatross was a foot from him and begging to be pushed against the hull and taught a lesson in disobeying her captain.

He saw her pupils widen and it hit him for the first time that maybe behind her River craziness, she wanted him too. Of course, you really never could tell with River, but his groin seemed to have made up its mind that _yep, consensual_ and had propelled him to pin her against the hull with as much of his body as was possible and assault her mouth.

Three and one half seconds later he remembered himself, and her (River Tam, 18-year-old probable virgin recently traumatized and moonbrained), and was probably about to pull back (probably not definitely because breasts feel nice, and he hasn't felt them against his chest in a while, okay?) when she hummed and wrapped her legs around his waist. She broke away to pant, "not nice to promise a bird things and never deliver," before kissing him again.

But he hardly had urges he couldn't control (the need to brawl on Unification Day notwithstanding), so he stepped back, then realized she was still holding on and kissing him. So he stepped forward again and leaned his hand against the wall and pried her off of him with his other.

"What promises, fool girl?" He tugged his hand through his hair, dying to be anywhere else, somewhere where life wasn't so hard.

"Dreams, butter-churning. Showing me, but never…" and she was panting, too, and she squirmed, the first time Mal had ever seen her look anything but…graceful. Sure, he'd seen her crazed with pain and suffering, but never…squirmy.

He sighed and regretted, bitterly, the kiss. Definitely a virgin, and he'd taken advantage. He was every kind of wretched son of a bitch that went to the special hell.

He heard a huff and felt his hair tugged so his lips would crash with hers again. Cursing, he pushed away from her (difficult, the strong little minx) yet again.

"We can't—"

"Don't. Know it all. All stupid. Just _take_." He couldn't concentrate with his cock that hard, so he closed his eyes, like that would help. He didn't know how to argue his way out of something when the other party didn't want to talk because she'd already heard, parsed out, and dismissed every argument in his mind.

She groaned and for a second he wondered is she was crazy again (would explain a lot), because she sounded crazed. "So hard to communicate! Wish you could just see, like me. See I _need_. I see. I see everyone, hear their…passion. Drown in it, need it, can _handle_ it, Mal." Mal didn't know much about romance, but he knew something about desperate, and River was that.

But, Mal also wasn't much for desperation, and despite the animal part of him that strongly disagreed, he breathed a little easier as he backed another step away.

"'Want' a thing and 'should have' a thing are two different…things."

"_Should_ have. Deserve. Formative experiences, stolen. Need, Mal. Please." She swallowed. "Please, treat me like an equal. Not a girl. Not a bird. Not crazy. Just…here."

He was…undone. Because wasn't everybody just wishing someone would see through her so she could just _be_ here? And no one could see through River Tam anymore, not since the Alliance burned her up.

But he could try.

* * *

He hadn't taken, not that day. He'd kissed her til she'd moaned, but Mal was one for waiting. Granted, he'd only waited two weeks, but they'd felt like a year, so he figured it counted as a lengthy courtship.

River was just as graceful and fast-learning and prodigious in bed as anywhere else, but it was the times when she wasn't—when her mouth opened in surprise and her eyes looked clear and focused on him (no other voices intruding)—that were the best. He'd never had any special yen for virgins, like some men he'd met, but he understood then. It was heady, knowin a woman had only ever felt that fist-curling good with you.

She didn't wear lingerie, which he loved, but she said he could buy her some, which he also loved.

It took Simon another month to notice, and he had the obligatory ire and disgust of a big brother who knows his little sister's been gettin plowed by a lech, but it had all cooled down, and then he and River were…well, a duo. Couple or lovers or anything else didn't sound right, but they were two, together. It took a few too many threats from Mal to make Jayne shut his dirty trap about cradle robbing, but it was River's roundhouse that made him stop asking Mal how the sex was.

Probably three months in, they were lying in bed, and Mal was just starting to feel his nose again (a by-product of shattering orgasms, which probably said something else bad about his health) when River lifted her head an inch and asked, "Mal, why? Can't see the why in your head, only the do. Don't understand why a captain wants a broken chick. Don't think captain's right in the head." It felt good to laugh, and he hugged her round her shoulders, glad to be laughing.

"Guess I don't see that havin to struggle a bit in life is a thing a person should be penalized for. Specially not when a person's a beautiful young genius whose dancing makes a man's pants feel awful tight." She still looked wide and deep into his eyes, trying to see the answer in his head, but a little smile landed on her lips.

"Always were a sucker for a losing cause, Captain." It was airy, like many of the things she said in her light, high voice.

"Guess I also don't see that a beautiful young genius whose dancing makes a man's pants feel awful tight is that much of a losing cause. She may have had her intervals of being totally gone round the gourd, but I've forgiven her for that period of weakness. It ain't like most people can't resist torture, experimentation, brain damage, and the secret of an entire decimated planet without maintainin their composure." Mayhap being pert wasn't the best way of winning over a girl, as such, but this wasn't exactly just a girl. It was River. And River could see through him, see that behind the flippant attitude he was serious as a heart attack about thinking she was—well, the whole verse. Just…the whole gorram verse.

She saw, and she smiled and said, "Statistically unlikely to escape prolonged torture without severe mental and emotional ramifications. Should check your facts before insulting a girl." And he saw her; she was a marvel, and she loved him, too. But they'd both rather be pert for now, and maybe go another round in his bunk.

They went two.


End file.
